Mike Gatting Biography

Burly, brusque, and outspoken, Mike Gatting remains one of the most controversial but iconic cricketers in the illustrious history of Middlesex CCC, and even England. He was remembered for the wrong reasons (some of them being jokes about his legendary appetite), but there was more to Gatting than that.

Gifted with nimble footwork (which was remarkable, given his girth), Gatting mastered Indian spinners at their den the way few have, shifting gear at will. He stepped out to loft them into the stands. He hit Ravi Shastri for four sixes in an over in an ODI in Jullundur, then a world record.

Gatting’s average of 35.56 does not make pleasant reading. However, between 1985 and 1987, he amassed 2,419 runs at 62 with 9 hundreds, and was next to only Dilip Vengsarkar when it came to run-scoring. He scored only one other ton in a career spanning 17 years.

Unfortunately, he could never sort out the West Indian fast bowlers. Gatting struggled against them both home and away, but the worst moment came when his nose was broken by a ‘perfume ball’ from Malcolm Marshall. He was hit so hard that a shard of Gatting’s bone was found embedded in the ball. But Gatting was made of sterner material: he returned home, got treated, and joined the squad on the same tour.

He was handed England captaincy after they trailed 0-2 in the 1986 home series against India; he responded with a resounding 183 not out at Edgbaston, helping England save their first Test after 7 consecutive defeats.

Gatting regained The Ashes in 1986-87. England would not win another Ashes contest till 2005. The next winter he led England to the Reliance World Cup final, only to throw it away with a reverse-sweep.

The year after that his reputation was marred even more, when a scandal involving a barmaid surfaced. Then he got into altercations with Shakoor Rana. The year after that he went on a rebel tour of South Africa and was banned for three years.

On return, he became the victim of Shane Warne’s ‘Ball of the Century.’ He came back in resounding fashion in the next Ashes, scoring a match-winning 117 at the Adelaide Oval, but his career ended after that series. He responded with a devastating 241 against Essex.

No one — perhaps with the exception of Plum Warner — was as synonymous to Lord’s and Middlesex as him. Matthew Engel wrote: “For two decades, it was a sight as characteristic of Lord’s as Father Time himself: Mike Gatting, with jutting beard and strutting gait, biffing the ball past extra-cover for Middlesex or England.”

During Middlesex’s golden era on either side of 1980, Gatting was their batting mainstay. In terms of run-scoring for the county he is next to only Patsy Hendren. In all First-Class cricket he scored over 36,000 runs at an average just below 50; his medium-paced bowling, though not used often at international level, nevertheless fetched him 158 wickets at below 30 in domestic cricket.

Gatting continued to be a regular at Lord’s, and was fittingly named President of Lord’s Taverners, and later, MCC.